Email as a Social Platform

Are you using your email to build or bore your tribe?

Email is old tech—tech no social platform has been able to upend.

Our inboxes are repositories for someone else’s priorities—but they remain one of our most intimate spaces online. We expect only the sender and receivers to have that archive. Even though we know once an email sent—it’s public forever.

Funny how we get outraged when our sense of pseudo-private expectation is violated.

Email has been a stable value-taking platform—take this email course, watch these email ads, or listen to my email pitch. Email that’s based on a perspective of taking is no longer a mature solution. Like Gary Vaynerchuk says—”People don’t market in the year they live in,” and when your email slant is heavy towards the take, you’re guilty.

People only read emails from trusted senders that GIVE value!

People are spam foldering emails from any sender they don’t trust or violated their value proposition.

This is huge change in the last ten years. In 2003—email campaigns were cool. They were relatively new. Spam was starting to take off—so all those value-making marketing ideas weren’t being overcome by the rest of the Viagra spam. It was more Wild West—but safer.

Today—we want email to be a respite from the madness. Corporate email policies and spam filters protect us from marketing inside the firewall—but unfortunately we get someone else’s priorities compounded. Which many could consider another value-taking proposition.

With email as ubiquitous as it is—where it’s always a swipe away (and we’re always a swipe away from porn)—the winners now are those who give more value than they take.

Chris Brogan is a great example of this with his newsletter. He’s transformed it from being about blog topics, to being about ownership, to about general things he’s going through. It’s open, it’s relatable—and he’s honest about when he’s making a pitch. But even in his pitches—they are early release, or subject to the deepest discounts he does (even over 50%)! That’s a great example of adding value first, upfront, not just negotiating or taking value.

Bob Lefsetz—LA’s conscience and consigliere—is another great example. He is true stream-of-consciousness—writing about music that influenced him, how the music industry is imploding, and about what artists need to do to earn the fame, fortune, and following they desire (hint: it’s a shit ton of work, mixed in with a lot of luck). He often makes posts that are strictly for his newsletter. Also—he posts email responses from his posts. Those are sometimes more valuable than the original post—music luminaries giving raw, penetrating feedback about their industry. Which fuels Lefsetz’s credibility and value to the community.

As a writer and consultant—I’ve been using my newsletter wrong. Not because I’ve been selling products (I don’t have any yet)—but because I haven’t been clear about the value I add first. That’s why people subscribe—a unique turn of the phrase, a consulting perspective on a business or life issue they’re going through. After being pitched all day at work and spammed all day at home—an email that’s helpful and engaging first is the winner.

Otherwise—they might as well unsubscribe.

We all need to be better at how we build relationships and engage our audience through email. As Seth Godin notes:

“Why on earth would you hit SEND ALL? Send 20, see what happens. Send 20 different ones, compare. Send 50. Now send all.”

What if you could sort your email contacts by their CRM information? Then think about the kind of deep diving you could do. What if you could get your email subscribers in Montana together for a meetup? Or send birthday cards via iOS Photos app to everyone! CRM is there for us to build relationships and engage.

Imagine AWeber combined with Highrise—whoever puts those two together will win because:

Your email relationships still determine if you win next year.

Email newsletters facilitate communication from leader to the tribe—which makes them prone to abuse. Stop looking at email as a way to take value—but a way to add value & let the tribe add value to each other.